Parks Police Face Staffing Crisis

With the warmer weather on the South Fork comes a swell of visitors and increased traffic, as well as the expected uptick in calls for emergency services. In the seven New York State parks in Montauk, there simply will not be enough officers to answer calls, shifting the burden to local police.

“We have a dramatic staffing crisis,” said State Parks Police Sgt. Manny Vilar, the East End zone supervisor. He is the president of the Police Benevolent Association of New York State, the fifth largest union in the state, not including the New York City Police Department. It represents the state park police, among others.

State park police are responsible for the popular Hither Hills campground, Montauk Point, and the Montauk Downs Golf Course, among other spots in the town’s easternmost hamlet, as well as the Sag Harbor Golf Course. Campgrounds should be covered 24 hour a day, 7 days a week, and that would take five police officers rotating on single-person shifts, according to Sergeant Vilar. Going into the summer of 2015, there are three (not including him), and one officer is on family medical leave, bringing the grand total to two. That’s one less than last summer.

The staffing shortage is not unique to the East End. Statewide 263 officers work to patrol 128 parks. Of them, 28 are newly graduated recruits who cannot work on their own until at least the Fourth of July.

The New York State Department of Civil Service determined that the state park police should have 383 officers. “We’re 120 people short,” Sergeant Vilar said this week. “They’re just not hiring. They’re not even hiring to keep up with the losses” from retirements, which recently included Officer Roland Walker, who patrolled mainly in Montauk for over 30 years, he said.

The New York State Department of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation doesn’t deny the staffing shortage.

“State Parks’ utmost priority is the safety of our visitors,” Randy Simons, a public information officer with the department, said in an email yesterday. “State Parks has authorized full-capacity park police training academies for the past three consecutive years, steadily increasing park police levels from 207 officers to 263 officers currently. In addition, a fourth park police academy is already scheduled for later this fall.” The department anticipates hiring an additional 105 public safety rangers in the peak summer months. “New Yorkers should be confident that their State Parks are safe and thoroughly policed,” Mr. Simons said.

But those public safety officers are not only not trained in law enforcement, Sergeant Vilar said, but they don’t even work on the East End.

On Long Island, from Valley Stream to Montauk, there are 35 officers, where there should be about 115, by his estimation. Nine of the officers are recruits, who are working under a supervisor during field training. There are 62 million visitors to state parks across New York, about 19 million of them to Long Island parks. Jones Beach, the busiest park on Long Island, needs 20 or 30 police officers, he said. Montauk is the third busiest after Robert Moses in Islip.

Wildwood State Park in Wading River, the nearest state campground to Montauk, also has three officers assigned to it, but they cannot help pick up calls. “It’s unrealistic to think the guy in Montauk can cover for the guy in Wildwood. They’re 62 miles apart, not to mention our lovely traffic,” he said.

So what will happen when there’s no officer available to patrol the state parks in Montauk? East Hampton Town police will have to pick up the slack, Sergeant Vilar said. “I love my East Hampton Town Police Department,” said the sergeant, who lives in Springs. “But, I don’t want them policing a state park. . . . I want them on Main Street in Montauk. I want them closing a house party at 2 a.m.,” he said. “The state, in essence, is shirking their fiduciary obligation and passing it off to the town.”

Town police have always backed up state parks police officers, who usually work alone, and they are no strangers to answering calls in the parks, including Cedar Point County Park in East Hampton. “The state parks issue has always been a problem, as we have had to pick up coverage when their staffing dwindled. Now we will have to even more,” Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said.

And the East Hampton Town Police Department is working at a deficit of its own, with 54 officers on the schedule when there should be 63 just as the population triples on the South Fork. Over the past 15 months, there have been several retirements and it has been difficult to keep up with hiring as there are not enough academy classes or part-time officers eligible, Chief Sarlo said. With six officers out with line-of-duty injuries — and another, Sgt. Daniel Roman, out for an extended period following an accident Friday —  staffing is not where it should be.

“We’re heading into summer pretty short-staffed,” the chief said. “We are asking a lot of our officers, and we are committed to not compromising response time, investigative efficiency, or safety.”

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. is among the advocates in the Legislature who want to see the situation resolved come budget time. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has not supported such efforts, however. “I think that certainly the public needs to let the governor know that, especially on Long Island, public safety is important and the parks police are an important part of public safety, especially during summertime,” Mr. Thiele said.

The state police union is also pushing the state to allow officers to work overtime in an attempt to keep up with summer demand. Still, Mr. Thiele said, “It’s physically impossible to cover it with the amount of people they have.”

The number of state parks police has been steadily declining for years. In 2007, prior to the recession, there were a total of 317. There were less than 200 before the next academy class graduated four years later.

Retention has been a longstanding problem, Sergeant Vilar said. The state parks police officers are highly trained in areas most law enforcement are not, such as boating in the waters of Niagara Falls or traversing the snowmobile trails, but they often leave for better salaries in other departments, where pensions are offered after 20 years instead of 25, as in the Parks Department.

State parks in Montauk are not a hotbed for violent crimes, but the call volume, particularly for quality-of-life issues, is increasing throughout the town. With 150 campsites at Hither Hills, it is common to get calls about loud music or campers partying all night. Sergeant Vilar believes a police officer on patrol would act as a deterrent. “If you take care of low-level crime, it will mitigate the upper-level crime.”